When Danger Reared it's ugly head, FEMA...

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Cosmoline

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... TURNED ITS TAIL AND FLED

Just heard a news flash on CNN that FEMA officials have announced they are leaving the worst hit parts of NO because too many people are trying to get their help and mob scenes are breaking out when new food arrives (gosh, who would have expected hungry people to mob food trucks?). Thousands have managed to get through the floodtide and to the Superdome, only to find out that there are no plans to actually bus any more people out of the area. The old and young are dying of exposure and lack of medicine.

Just goes to show you--when it truly hits the fan you can expect the gob'ment to.. BOLDLY RUN AWAY! You are better off grabbing your rifle, getting what you can and making your own way out.
 
FEMA... can't find it when you need it, they find you when you don't need them?

After reading this: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...1,0,2041291,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines my question is, isn't FEMA's whole purpose to be a Federal agency with Federal-scale resources to solve problems like this? What is their point of being if, when the real S hits the real F, all the work is being done by cops and national guardsmen who are not really prepared for this type of thing? They have converted the Superdome into a shelter / prison, and if they don't get people out of their soon it will also be a death-camp (ie, people will start dying of diahrrea, violence, and disease). Isn't FEMA supposed to be able to quickly set up camps, provide shelter and medical care, etc?

They seem to be totally MIA.

Of course, we know the rumors about FEMA: they are there to detain non-cooperative citizens in a time when the Federal government suspends the constitution. I don't see any evidence of that, but I'm also not seeing FEMA doing what the second and third letters of its acronym suggest it should be doing.
 
People (3) are already dying in the Superdome. Rapes and assaults are also taking place, so the media reports.

The head of FEMA claimed that his people will be working on the Louisiana disaster for the rest of their careers. Job security.

I think the governor of Louisiana should be yanked. She is just moaning and sobbing and doesn't seem to be able to provide any leadership or direction. Get somebody in there who will take action!
 
It's still early in this disaster - I wouldn't be calling FEMA incompetent yet, give them time to get stuff in place. From everything I've read they did a good job in Florida after the hurricanes hit there - I'm pretty sure they'll step up the plate in this one too.
 
FEMA workers aren't police or military, I don't blame them for taking off. Nothing to worry about, the NG is sending 100 military police. Give it a few days, they'll be eating each other.

"Police told reporters to be careful. “We were told don't drink or eat in public as it could lead to a mob situation,” NBC's Michelle Hofland said. “We were told that by sundown to get out of here.”

Federal rescue workers were pulled back from some areas of the city where gunfire was heard or reported, a Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News.

He said the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control. “That’s not enough,” Zuschlag. “We need a thousand.”
 
According to my father-in-law, who's worked on these things.

1) FEMA writes the checks to
2) The Red Cross who distributes the food after
3) Local disaster response organizations (like the Baptist affiliated one he's worked with) cook behind the scenes.

My understanding is that FEMA is the big check writer making things happen.
 
"There are isolated incidents where security has become an issue for our rescue efforts but only isolated incidents. FEMA is not suspending operations," said Natalie Rule of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington.
Click to expand...

Anybody who citicizes FEMA for trying to protect it's workers obviously does not understand the severity of the situation.

Please tell me, how would a dead or wounded FEMA worker contribute to the relief efforts underway?
 
This whole thing is a freaking cluster, and not the chewy nuts & caramel kind. I don't fault FEMA for working to keep their people out of harms way from riotous mobs. I do wonder where the LA National Guard is, and why they are over there when their role is here, and the wisdom of the folks who sent them there.
You are better off grabbing your rifle, getting what you can and making your own way out.
Click to expand...
Yep, all too true.
 
Disaster response from FEMA follows a set pattern. Local officials have to determine a disaster is beyond their ability to handle and request the state for help. When the state needs help they then ask for federal assistance. All of those steps take time and often FEMA will be on the scene long before the politicians make up their minds. (I've seen them take weeks to admit they can't handle an event)

FEMA is mainly a check writing organization, but they have good people who know how to set up and run an emergency management organization. Big events require big solutions and assembling the resources does take time. Once in place things will happen. But only if the local people initially ask for help.
 
I hope everyone remembers one thing. The ability of a bad situation to get worse and get out of control can and will overwhelm the ability of good people and organizations to respond and get everything back under control.

At least in the short term.
 
Meanwhile, residents of Baghdad sleep tight with 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard standing watch.

While their friends and family members are caught in a disaster area.

Well, I guess as the Sec of Defence would say "You go to the disaster with the National Guard you have, not the National Guard that you want."
 
I am not sure who you guys think FEMA is, but these FEMA teams are sort of like the National Guard in the sense that they are made up of people who normally do something else for a living (but work in a field that has skills needed for disaster situations). And are activated to respond to disasters.
For a little background, I work as a professional firefighter in Las Vegas. I would guess that our local FEMA team is primarily made up of firefighters (guys I work with that volunteered to be members of the FEMA team ). They spent many weeks training for incidents like the one on the gulf (in additional to already working in a related field). I am not a member of the FEMA team, although I was asked to become a member to serve as a haz-mat tech but didn't have the time to invest in it (the training is done on your own time: not at work). Yesterday, our FEMA team was activated to go to the gulf coast. The team was anticapating being activated so they were loading their gear and equipment onto pallets the day before activation. Yesterday, the entire team reported. Probably 1/3 of these guys were on duty firefighters: replacements had to be found for them. Off duty guys were called in for mandatory overtime (including me). Once the gear was loaded, somewhere between 70 and 80 guys were chosen for the deployment. Not all were firefighters: I know there were some iron workers, a couple doctors, and a couple nurses. Their gear will be transported by C-130 from Nellis AFB. The personel have to ride for 31 hours on a bus to get to the gulf coast. They will be deployed for 10-14 days and in the mean time I will probably be working for 72 hours on, 24 hours off to make up for the men we have on deployment.
Our team has previously been deployed to NYC after 9/11 and to Florida following another hurricane years ago.
I believe that the first two teams deployed were Fairfax county and Maryland.
 
I read an unverified report in another that FEMA suspended boat operations due to their people getting shot at. The thing is that organizations that are centered around dealing with AMERICAN disasters are *NOT* prepared for, or accustomed to, getting shot at. This is an odd sort of dissaster, and we really dont have an infrastructure to deal with this.
 
Dont blame FEMA because they are not prepared to deal with Americans that behave like "the enemy" in a war zone. having people actually FIRING ON rescue workers is unprecedented in America.
 
I've posted this in another thread, but it bears repeating here.

Folks, to all of you muttering about how the authorities are failing to get things right, please consider the following.

1. A disaster situation such as this has never before happened in the history of the United States, much less the Gulf States. You're talking about a stretch of territory almost 150 miles long, and extending from the tip of the Mississippi exit to about 200 miles inland. Damage varies in those areas, but all electricity is out at a minimum; there's no gas for your car; many places have no water, sewage or other utilities; and a lot of places are either under water or completely destroyed. Do the math. You CANNOT possibly have enough people in this entire area to cover all the needs unless you put in at least half-a-dozen army divisions, and even they, with all their equipment, would be hard-pressed to cope with the hundreds of thousands of people who need immediate help - never mind the two-million-plus evacuees who got out of the worst-affected areas, but now need help in adjacent states, towns and counties.

2. The vast majority of those involved in looting and unrest are people who have been on welfare and/or social security for years, not months. They never were self-sufficient. If you go around shooting them indiscriminately, can you imagine the consequences in every other inner-city area in the United States? We'd be facing nation-wide unrest on a scale undreamt of in our past history. We've created a whole "underclass" of people who know no other life but dependency on government. That problem is now coming home to roost big-time in those places where government has ceased to exist. I don't know what the answer is, but you can't shoot them, and you can't control them by normal means. I'm heavily involved in the rescue and recovery efforts through a Church group, and none of us have answers - perhaps we never will.

3. Self-defence is entirely legitimate and appropriate, as is police action (up to and including the use of lethal force) against those attacking you, or engaged in actual criminal activity. However, seeing someone walking the streets (whether alone or in a group), while armed, is NOT, in and of itself, a criminal offence. Heck - it might be me! The "shoot on sight" mentality assumes that all such folks are criminals, without any evidence to either support or reject this theory. If we're going to adopt such an attitude, then why not get rid of the courts and the justice system altogether? Anarchy is the logical consequence.

4. Please don't judge those in authority too harshly. They're trying to cope with something that has never before occurred here, and no-one knows how to do it. We're all learning "on the fly", and many mistakes have been made, and will continue to be made. However, many things have gone right, and much good has been done. There isn't perfection in this operation, and I don't expect that there ever will be. We're doing our best, and that's all we can do.

Now, if you have something helpful and constructive to contribute, please let us know about it. If you only want to carp and whine, please shut up and let those of us who are trying to cope, go on doing so.
Click to expand...

I've merged duplicate threads.
 
I don't fault the gob'ment. I just think the whole situation goes to show that you're an idiot if you expect the state to help you in a serious pinch. You've got to be prepared to take care of yourself rather than acting like a sheep and get herded from one SNAFU cluster fudge to another. The state has no duty to protect you or save you. And you may find that when they're allocating resources you get written off--just like the folks wandering around the Superdome right now like zombies from "Dawn of the Dead."
 
Thank you Preacherman.
I guess I can't take the High Road here when a bunch of people who are doing NOTHING about the situation sit back and complain about the people who are doing something.
The people I know who are being activated as part of a FEMA team are going to endure 62 hours on a bus to get there and back. They are going to be away from their families, jobs, and personal affairs for probably 20 days. They are going to be exposed to all forms of germs, disease and filth not to mention people shooting at them. They are giving up their comfortable beds and air conditioning as well as good hot food.
All in the name of helping people. And the thanks they get from some people on this board is nothing but complaints that it isn't enough, fast enough. Typical spoiled Americans: The free horse has bad teeth.
I don't know about all the FEMA personel deployed to the gulf coast, but the ones I know personally volunteered for this. They could be sitting right here in Las Vegas enjoying their day off today. They didn't have to go. They voluteered to go. Sounds familiar, doesn't it. They are volunteers just like the soldiers over in Bagdad. They volunteered to do the dirty work so people can stab them in the back on the internet. :fire:
So, as always, if you arn't happy with what is going on, get up off your chair and do something about it: that means you doing something, not just talking about someone else doing something about it. Or in a more common phrase: Put up, or shut up. You got the talking done.
 
Meanwhile, residents of Baghdad sleep tight with 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard standing watch.

While their friends and family members are caught in a disaster area.
Click to expand...
:barf: Do you truely fail to appreciate that those in Bagdad are protecting their friends and family from other forms of disaster that are being dealt with over there instead of over here?
 
I don't fault the gob'ment. I just think the whole situation goes to show that you're an idiot if you expect the state to help you in a serious pinch. You've got to be prepared to take care of yourself rather than acting like a sheep and get herded from one SNAFU cluster fudge to another.
Click to expand...

I dont think anyone here is likely to disagree with this.

One thing that i think people need to remember is that this was a disaster that came with a warning. The people in the Dome and who are being evacuated are the people who A) didnt get out when they were told to, and B) dont have *any* ability to take care of themselves. I tell you i would be sleeping in my car 100 miles from NO before i would get herded into a shelter like that.
 
:barf:
Meanwhile, residents of Baghdad sleep tight with 3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard standing watch.

While their friends and family members are caught in a disaster area.

Well, I guess as the Sec of Defence would say "You go to the disaster with the National Guard you have, not the National Guard that you want."
Click to expand...
:barf:

Henry Bowman +1

Cosmoline +1

Preacherman +1

How can that be?

Henry Bowman took the vomitt right out of my mouth. For someone to even hint that the current conflict in Baghdad has anything to do with the way things are playing out in N.O., La. simply shows a lack of understanding of the problem, so eloquently laid out by Preacherman.

The response time to something such as this is a tad bit longer than those who watch 1 hour television series would like. In a typical television series or a two hour "Epic Event" thigs are neatly wrapped and fixed in hour or two and the hero is back home hugging his wife watching his children play on the swings.

GET REAL! Nothing like this has ever happened to the United States of America. I am just thankful that Dennis died as it made landfall a few months ago, as it was a very strong CAT4 and would have literally destroyed Alabama.

Any response, be it .gov, private, parochial or military takes time to coordinate and in this case, special precautions are needed due to a)looting/danger to volunteers/workers and b) the death and disease that awaits those headed that way.

To try and turn this into a Bush bashing thread is at best childish and at worst shows contempt for our fellow Americans, bith in Baghdad and N.O., La. :barf:

(BTW, I wrote in Pat Buchanon :eek: , so don't put me in the koolaid camp!)
 
Hey everybody, don't forget to use this national tragedy to score a few cheap political points by criticizing the war your countrymen are fighting.

It's your patriotic duty.

:rolleyes:
 
Do you truely fail to appreciate that those in Bagdad are protecting their friends and family from other forms of disaster that are being dealt with over there instead of over here?
Click to expand...

I fail to see what good they are doing in a country that never attacked us and that didn't have any WMD's lying around, when we need those soldiers here in their home state and home city.

We have a mangled homeland security apparatus that has the reaction time of a slug, even with ample warning, we have 1st responders in other countries, and yet George Bush has somehow made us "safer". Yeah, great. I know I have FULL confidence now that if another major disaster happens in this country, man made or otherwise, the government is probably less able to handle it then before, due to the disgusting bloat of the federal homeland "security" beucracy that was supposed to make us all safer.

US Army Corps of Engineers Levey funding cut, billions of missing dollars in Iraq!

If just one billion of the 8 or so missing in Iraq was actually spent in LA instead of some worthless sand trap, more people would be alive today and an entire city wouldn't be doing its best impression of Atlantis.

Bush's "improvements" are a lie and a joke, and events in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are proof positive.

When the death toll climbs into the thousands maybe people will wake up and realize that George Bush has failed in his biggest job yet.

Gutted National guard, inept FEMA, Homeland Security department that takes 3 days to have a press conference....It's like nobody in Washington (or Crawford) realized the extent of what was going on until it was almost too late, and in many cases for thousands of people, it already is too late.

I expect better then 3rd world disaster relife efforts from the most powerful nation on Earth. Aparently my expectations were too high. People paid for it, with their lives.
 
During last years hurricanes in FL many people from the Blackfeet tribe here in Montana went to help. They were hired by FEMA.

I am sure the same thing will happen this time, but it doesn't happen overnight. There are priorities for moving people and equipment into the disaster zone. Rank and file workers to help with general cleanup are pretty much the last to go in.

I say give FEMA a week or so to get spooled up completly and see what happens.

bob
 
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